Cypher has announced that it has withdrawn its bid to become the thirteenth team in 2011.
The American-based outfit announced on Friday night that it did not have a sufficent budget to enter next season, but would be aiming to break into the sport in future.
“We remain completely committed to developing a credible and viable Formula 1 team and were able to raise a considerable amount of sponsorship and interest in recent months,” said the group in a statement.
“However after much deliberation we have decided that the budget we have is not sufficient to allow us to pursue the project in a manner befitting the series.
“It was not an easy decision, but one made out of respect for the FIA Formula One World Championship and our loyal supporters.”
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton believes that the upcoming summer break may prove detrimental to the team’s title bid.
Under the terms of the break, team will not be able to work on their cars in the run up to August’s Belgian Grand Prix.
As a result, the world championship leader fears that the team will not be able to make a significant jump in performance, to close on Red Bull and Ferrari.
“It is a concern but there is nothing we can do about it, so I just have focus on doing the best job I have with what I have,” Hamilton told Autosport. “There is nothing I can do.
“Everything shuts down; they [Red Bull Racing and Ferrari] are in a good position where they have a good car already. They will come back and the car is still the same, whereas we would love to improve the car.”
In other news, Kamui Kobayashi has been a five-place grid penalty ahead of tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
Following his exit from Q1, the Sauber driver had been scheduled to take to the FIA’s garage to be weighted.
However the Japanese star ignored the red light, designated at the entrance to the pit lane, and instead continued to his own garage.
Finally, Virgin’s Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock, HRT’s Sakon Yamamoto and Renault’s Vitaly Petrov have all received reprimands for failing to stay below the maximum delta lap time set by the FIA’s ECU, during Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying.
Autosport reports that all four drivers failed to make it back to the pits in a time under one minute and twenty-six seconds.
According to the rule, introduced this year to prevent drivers coasting back to the pits: “drivers must stay below the maximum time set by the FIA between the safety car line after the pit exit and Safety Car line before the pit entry.”
